The Long Grind Before You Become an Overnight Success

 “So, what do you do?”

Ugh. I hated that question.

The truth was that we were trying to start a new venture but we hadn’t really made any progress.

But, instead of just muttering something, I would force myself to enthusiastically pitch our current struggling idea. They would nod along but the skepticism on their face was hard to ignore.

And, when I was done, they would sometimes hit me with: “So, is that your full-time thing?” Ugh. What that really meant was: you’re trying to tell me that you spend all your time working on that ridiculous idea?

The Grind

We left our finance jobs in the summer of 2007, and we worked really, really hard. By February of 2010, it had been over two and half years of hustling on no salary. What did we have to show for it? Nothing.

We hadn’t made a dollar of revenue. We had been rejected by every investor we talked to. We hadn’t been able to recruit anyone to join our team. We hadn’t gotten traction with any of our ideas.

We had failed to get more than 10K monthly unique visitors for Yipit for the last two years despite trying several ideas with it. We were going sideways:

On a personal level, my life savings was disappearing. I kept getting hit with late penalties on my credit card. Not because I didn’t have the cash to pay it, but because I just didn’t want to think about it. It was too depressing to look at my depleting bank account that I had worked so hard to build up. I remember withdrawing all the money from my 401K account and having to confirm that I did, in fact, understand the massive penalties I would incur for doing so.

In all honesty, I probably would have given up earlier. The only reason why I didn’t was out of loyalty to my co-founder, Jim, who had also quit his finance job. He had passed up many amazing job opportunities to work alongside me and I wasn’t going to quit on him.

Everything Changes

So, it’s now February of 2010, over two and half years since we started, and we have yet another idea: build an aggregator for the early but quickly growing daily deal industry. The idea was sound, timely and right up our alley since we had been doing local deal aggregation for the last 9 months.

And, in just three days, everything changed.

We launched the new idea in a three-day scramble, got some initial press, users loved it, and four months later raised $1 million from amazing investors. A year after that, we’ve raised $6 million, made real revenue, attracted hundreds of thousands of users, and recruited amazing people to join our team (we’re hiring! join us!). And, best of all, we’re just getting started.

So, what happened in those three days?

I’m convinced that if we had the idea for a daily deal aggregator back in 2007 or 2008 or even 2009, we wouldn’t have gotten traction because we would have messed it up.

But, after two and half years of failing and learning, we knew exactly what to do:

• Product strategy. We had become a part of the lean startup movement. I had gone to the New York lean startup meetups from the beginning, read Four Steps to Epiphany, and knew we just needed to build a minimum viable product.
• Coding the prototype.  I had taught myself web development over the last few years and Jim had taught himself front-end development. We didn’t need to find an outsourcer, we just quickly built it ourselves.
• Designing the user interface. We had already designed a bunch of prototypes. We knew how to design the landing page to collect user email addresses, the sign-up flow to collect preferences and to ask our new users to spread the message.
• Getting initial press. We knew how to craft our story in a way that would get journalists interested. We got featured on TechCrunch and Wired giving us a strong initial boost
• Getting investors interested. We had built relationships with many New York angel investors over the last few years and we were able to quickly drum up some interest based on our traction since they already knew who we were.
• Building buzz. We had become involved in the New York tech community and our friends in the industry really helped us build initial buzz for Yipit

Now that I look back, I realize that I was wrong to think that we had nothing to show for two and half years of hustling. While we didn’t have outward signs of success, we had learned something very important: the art and science of starting a new venture. It took us almost three years to know what exactly we had to do during those three days.

And, so, to everyone out there who’s struggling and feels like they have nothing to show for it, I hope this post keeps you going. You’re learning every day. And, when the inspiration strikes, you’re going to be ready to pounce on it.

About the Author: Vinicius Vacanti is co-founder and CEO ofYipit, a service that finds you great local deals by learning your tastes. Here he shares the lessons he learns as a first-time entrepreneur in Silicon Alley.

By Jef Menguin

You will not have time to do everything that you want to do. But you will always have enough time to do everything that truly matters.

I live my life simply. I write simply too. My words are simple because I do not know the complicated ones. I write what I have learned. And whatever I’ve learned, I learned through the three methods I know: experience, observation, and imagination.

I am not in denial. I know that many Filipinos do not honor commitments. I know that many of them are latecomers. I know also that this is true to various peoples in the world. I met them. I read about their stories.

Those Filipinos who are more conscious about time, I believe, can best define Filipino Time. It does not need a genius to make sense of this, right? The best users of time must be the one to define it. You must have experienced and observed how they live their lives. They do not need time management techniques that we usually read because they do not manage their time. They live time. They live life. Because time is life.

The New Filipino Time is living a fruitful life. I believe this is the key to all time management principles that you need to learn. When techniques do not contribute to you living a fruitful life, then those techniques must be thrown out of the window.

Let me give you two examples.

The New Filipino Time is not about creating more time in our lives. Have you wished you had 36 hours in a day? I wonder what could happen to all of us if we had 36 hours in a day. Many people complain for not having enough time to do everything and to be everywhere. Not even a thousand years will be enough to do everything. And I doubt if many of us would like to live a thousand years.

Those who are not conscious about time, unfortunately, are not also conscious about their choices. When I was a college student, many of my classmates complained that they do not have much time to read and work on projects. But they always have time to talk about how bad the school system was run, the blockbuster movie they watched the night before, or just about anything and nothing. Observing how we spent our days, made me realize that many people have unlimited time to spend on useless things and always find the time very limited to do the most important things.

Here is the brutal fact. There are many Filipino boxers. All of them have the same 24 hours as Manny Pacquiao. Many Filipinos sing well. They have the same 24 hours as Arnel Pineda and Charice Pempengco. There are many people who wanted the best for the Philippines. Some of them complained much too. They have the same 24 hours as Efren Penaflorida. For many of us who wanted to become millionaires, Manny Pangilinan’s 24 hours in a day is no longer or shorter than ours.

I mentioned these people because you know them. I am not asking you to compare yourself to them. Let us just be clear – we do not need an extra time for each day. Each hour is an opportunity to be fruitful. Each hour is an opportunity to be happy. Each hour is an opportunity to be significant. How many hours in the 24 we have everyday do we spend on being fruitful, happy and significant?

The New Filipino Time is not about packing more activities into one’s day. Often, people who want to see me ask whether I am busy. Of course, they can view my calendar in my website (But I do not write there everything that I do).

My answer: No, I am not busy. I just keep myself productive.

Busyness is not the business of a fruitful person. The New Filipino Time is not about completing many tasks in a day; it is also not about producing a lot of output. It is about outcome, that is, the results which make us fruitful, happy, and significant.

Here is a brutal fact: Most people think that it is cool to multi-task. Your brain cannot multi-task. The best producers and inventors in the world are not the multi-taskers but those who focused their concentration on doing what they believe to be important.

Here is another brutal fact: You do not have to finish everything that you have started. When you are in a middle of something and you find it meaningless and useless, you do not really have to finish it. Throw it. Or get out.

I get out when the movie I am watching is a garbage. I made the wrong choice when I entered the cinema; I will make another by staying. I know of many people who will choose to stay simply because the ticket is expensive. You have already wasted your money, why do you have to waste your time. The same is true with “free seminars” sponsored by some MLM companies. Some use deceptive means like making you believe that you are attending a “financial intelligence seminar”. Time wasting is financial ignorance. Fruitful persons do not allow other people to manipulate them and waste their time. Whatever is not important cannot be part of their day’s agenda.

The New Filipino Time IS about focusing our day on our most important agenda! This is the key to the success of those who make the best use of their time. Not expanding the hours. Not doing more task in a day. But simply focusing and staying on the most important agenda.

There is one sentence that I like you to write today. Memorize it. And say it before you start any task.

I MUST DO THE MOST PRODUCTIVE THING POSSIBLE AT THIS GIVEN MOMENT.

How do you know which of the many things that you need to do is the most productive? Those tasks that when done will lead you towards the fulfillment of your agenda – of your purposes in life – are the most productive. You do them because they are important to you.

Let us do a short game. Get your paper and pen. Doing so is better than typing on a keyboard.

Are you ready?

Good! Okay, please do the following:

1. List down those which you value the most. Some people write God, family, work, church, school, education, friends, etc. You may limit your list to the ten most important.
2. Next, write down the activities you have done for the last seven days. Try to remember everything. It does not have to be all work. You may include watching TV, road travel, shopping, etc. I also suggest that you include the amount of time you spent for each.
3. Answer this: which of your activities you have done for the last seven days made you fruitful, happy, and significant? If you included family in your list, how many activities and how much of your time was spent on developing your relationship with your family? All activities which do not make you a better father, husband, employee, leader, friend, citizen, etc do not make you live a life that is fruitful, happy, and significant.

From now on, I encourage you to change your idea about Filipino Time, or simply about Time (for time does not really need a nationality). Be careful on how you make choices. Be careful on how you live.

You have to make the most of every opportunity. Use every hour, every minute, every second, and every moment to accomplish your most important agenda.

Jef Menguin is a Filipino inspirational speaker. He encourages leaders to make the best use of their time in his leadership workshops. Visit his blog – http://jefmenguin.com/?cat=259 – or email him through inspire@jefmenguin.com.

by Jef Menguin

Whoever thought of creating GoodNewsPilipinas.com must have kusang-palo. Kusang-palo is a Filipino trait that our ancestors value most. It was one of the first personal values that I have learned from my parents. They said that one would not worry about life and living if he had kusang-palo.

I was in Negros last month. The mayor of Sagay City invited me to conduct a one-day leadership seminar for all the managers of the City government. I am happy because he also joined the seminar. When asked about the values that leaders must possess to be successful, I told them that there are many but one principal ingredient is kusang-palo. Let me explain.

Nowadays, we are used to see people who do not care much about work. I call them the 15th and 30th employees. One manager of a client company here in Manila complained to me that his people do not work when he is not around. One time, they failed to deliver the order of an important client on time. Team A justified their inaction by saying that they did not have enough materials. Team B had the materials, but said it was not their responsibility to tell Team A. “Where is there common sense?”, he asked. I thought they had common sense. What they did not have was kusang-palo.

Look for people with kusang-palo. While most people complain, a person with kusang-palo do something. They make companies thrive. When you have a problem, they will explore opportunities and solutions. You do not have to monitor them all the time. They can decide and act.

Kusang-palo makes the difference between “robots at work” and “people at work.” The robots at work do things because they have to comply with the program. In the absence of an assignment and a deadline, the “robots at work” will try to look busy while “killing” time. People with kusang-palo, the “people at work”, think of themselves as self-employed. They take responsibility for the success of the organization, for delivering great service to the customer, and for their personal and professional development.

I daresay that no person, not even the most intelligent ones, can become successful without kusang-palo. Entrepreneurs must have kusang-palo. Athletes, movie stars, singers, teachers, and leaders must all have kusang-palo.

And if you want to be successful, I suggest that you develop this almost-forgotten but very important Filipino trait.

Have kusang-palo.

Have initiative.

Jef Menguin is a Filipino inspirational speaker and leadership consultant. Visit his website – http://jefmenguin.com/ – to read his blog and to find out how you can invite him to your organization.

The IKTA Syndrome

by Francis Kong (November 7, 2010, from www.franciskong.com)

Speakers like me struggle with listening to other speakers all the time.

• “Oops…he did not pronounce it right….”
• “Oh no…there is a misspelled word in his PowerPoint.”
• “That’s an old joke…”
• “I’ve heard that one already…”

This is not good. This means I will never be able to learn anything.

Sometimes when I listen to speakers speaking, mind would say: “He got this from Charles Swindoll’s book entitled “Grace Awakening” third chapeter left hand page bottom corner…”

The mind processes thoughts five to ten times faster than the human ear can ear and my mind is just so noisy.

This is what I call the IKTA syndrome.

IKTA  is an acronym that means: “I Know That Already.”

Then this thing operates, it closes my mind from learning anything new.

This is not a good thing.

IKTA should be countered by another acronym BAIDI (BUT AM I DOING IT?)”

Sure. I have heard it before but have I been applying what I have heard and the next question is: “Am I already good at it?”

To learn things has to first start with having a beginner’s mind.

The word is “SHOSIN.”

This time this is not an acronym. This is a Japanese word, which means “beginners mind.” Author Shunryu Suzuki explains it this way: “This does not mean a closed mind, but actually an empty mind and a ready mind. If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything. It is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind there are few.” Think like a beginner, not an expert, when reading this book. Suspend what you know and empty—don’t open—your mind to the ideas in each chapter. Think about how you’ll implement these strategies. Ideas are easy. Execution is hard.

I agree but I need to qualify. I never want my mind to be running on empty. All these things about meditation and emptying of the mind are not my cup of tea. I have always believed in the seriousness of critical thinking.

Having the ability to think is not the same as having an open mind all the time. If your mind is too open your brains may fall out.

What I mean is not to let pride seep into the mind and convince me that I am so good or in fact better than the speaker such that what he or she says is far inferior to what I know.

I need to remind myself that when I was in High School, I graduated in the part of the class that made the top half possible.

I need to be a life long learner. And even if the speaker is saying something I have heard before, it should be treated as a reminder for me to put it into practice.

My audiences are kind. Many of them have heard me many times. They may have heard the same thing, the same funny stories, the same jokes and they would tell me, “Francis I have heard you at least 4 times and even though I have heard the same funny lines…I still laugh every time you say it.”

Now that’s their polite way of saying, “Francis why don’t you update and upgrade your stuff?”

This is why I attend seminars, I go back to school, I read books and I listen to Audio CD’s in order to learn and to equip myself with new stuff. And I need to be humble enough to understand that the day I stop learning from a 6 year old boy is the day I am finished.

This is also the reason why I have read the entire Bible for so many times cover to cover yet I feel like I have not known anything. Try it for yourself. This is why we need a lot of humility and courage to admit this. I know I do.

Web::Endless search for a cool domain name

by: Tedtalks

{http://bosanchez.ph/winners-have-a-bias-for-action/}

Winners Have A Bias For Action

By Bo Sanchez,

 By Jennifer Robinson

The economic term "creative destruction" is like a Band-Aid. It sounds therapeutic, but it covers a great deal of trauma and pain. And "trauma and pain" certainly describes the results of the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998: Untold numbers of companies and individuals went under, never to come back up.

On the other hand, the crisis did expose a number of poor business practices and left the field clear for innovation. Companies that used the crisis as a spur to improvement are better able to compete in a global market. One of them is Siam Commercial Bank (SCB).

Change program

The crisis wiped out many of the commercial banks in Thailand. Those that remained needed to solidify their financial standing and revive their brands. Competition to stand out was fierce because the crisis destabilized the banks' old standbys -- corporate banking was losing steam, many loans were in default, and investment banking was shaky. The smart banks noticed that retail customers were standing out in a suddenly clear field -- and began looking for ways to market to them.

But Thai banks had never put much effort into cultivating relationships with this unglamorous customer base. SCB was no different. Customers waited for 45 minutes on average to see a teller. Bank managers' offices were in the back of the bank, the most junior employees faced the customers, and it was a rare customer who spotted an employee with real authority. The bank had no clear product or service strategy to fuel growth, low levels of productivity, a limited branch network, and employees who were reliable but hardly engaged.

In 2001, SCB set out to change all that, figuring that customer service was the differentiator it had been looking for. The bank installed ATM machines throughout Thailand, especially in Bangkok. SCB upgraded its technology and improved efficiency. It started adding branches quickly, emphasizing the bank's progressive thinking through the branches' modern design. SCB focused on putting retail customers first, and it paid off: Total assets for the bank climbed 69,035,000,000 THB (2,116,202,510 USD) between 2002 and 2003.

SCB's response to the crisis was smart and effective, but the bank's best leadership move may have been its most questioned one -- it hired Kannikar Chalitaporn as the head of retail banking in January 2003. Chalitaporn learned the ropes of retail and management at Unilever Thai Trading Ltd., eventually becoming vice chairman and director of personal care products. That retail management experience, not banking knowledge, is what SCB so badly needed. So SCB hired Chalitaporn and gave her time to learn banking from top to bottom -- even though her initial understanding of the field was almost nil.

"I didn't know anything about banking when they hired me," says Chalitaporn. "Nothing except my own checking account." But SCB didn't necessarily want a banking expert when it went looking for the head of its retail banking group. The bank wanted someone to fix problems, and Chalitaporn's leadership style -- analytical, proactive, unsentimental -- was the best response to the bank's problems.

It only took three months for Chalitaporn to learn banking laws, SCB policies, and the culture of a historic, 9,000-employee bank. "Banking laws weren't the main thing [I needed to know]; it was the principles of management, of understanding customers, of leadership, and I knew them," says Chalitaporn. "I understand the supply chain." The supply chain, Chalitaporn quickly realized, was similar whether the supply was face lotion or mortgages -- and it was the problem she had to fix first.

Better, faster, stronger

Having examined the bank, she called in the top managers and told them that henceforth, their job was to make customer service part of the culture at every level. "I'm not paying your salary. The customer pays your salary," she told them.

That was the easy part. The rest was a shock: SCB would not be competing on price anymore because Chalitaporn takes a very dim view of such tactics. "It won't last, and it's all lost profit anyway," she says. "Anyone can cut prices; you don't need a brain to do that. What you should do is add value -- you should charge a premium for a valuable product." Nor would SCB add new products. Instead, it would be streamlining the ones it had. The revenue stream would have to come from the sales made by -- and the services provided by -- employees.

Branches would now be held accountable against key performance indicators, which would be announced at the beginning of the year, starting the following January. There would be an overall goal for the bank as a whole, but each branch would also be measured against its own past results. Area managers would no longer spend most of their time at the head office, and when they were at a branch, they would be at the least profitable branch instead of the most comfortable one. Branch managers who couldn't meet the new compliance and performance standards would be moved to other, less profitable branches. "Just shuffle a few. Others will get the message," says Chalitaporn.

This strategy sounds both ambitious and aggressive, and maybe it was -- but Chalitaporn didn't fire anyone, ever. Layoffs would have devastated the employees, run counter to the SCB culture -- whole families are employed at the bank -- and undermined all her efforts. But the fact that underperforming managers were moved instead of fired indicated that the old guard didn't have to move out of the way, and they could both learn from and teach fresh new talent. But Chalitaporn didn't expect SCB employees to reinvent their bank on their own. "If we succeed," she told them, "we succeed together. I'll be behind you every step of the way."

Baseline

Chalitaporn needed a baseline against which to measure performance, and she needed help determining the best way to reach and keep customers and employees. So SCB implemented Gallup's customer and employee engagement assessments, the Q ¹² and CE ¹¹. (See "Feedback for Real" and "The Constant Customer" in the "See Also" area on this page.) This was, for Chalitaporn, an unusual move. "I don't like consultants," she says. In particular, what she doesn't like are needless complications, research that obscures more than it illuminates, and abstract measures that don't lead to better branch-level performance. "I like things simple. Complicated often wastes time," says Chalitaporn.

But the Gallup programs struck a nerve. The surveys are brief, they're designed to gauge emotional responses, and higher scores are directly related to higher levels of and larger increases in customer spending. They were relatively simple to implement. And they reflected a premise that Chalitaporn had based her career on -- management and customer service are manifestations of psychology, and psychological motivations matter to performance.

In 2003, Gallup implemented the surveys and established baseline performance results. Overall customer engagement for the bank was rather low -- below the 30 ^th percentile -- which meant the bank's customers were as engaged as the customers of about 30% of all the similar institutions Gallup has studied. Employee engagement was above the 10 ^th percentile, which was extremely low.

So Chalitaporn and the bank's board decided that to make SCB the bank of choice, they'd have to work fast to boost employee engagement while aiming for world-class customer engagement. Their goal? To reach the 90 ^th percentile in the Gallup retail banking customer engagement database by 2009. It was an audacious goal.

The results

At this point, one may wonder how Chalitaporn got away with it. She was new to the bank and banking, she was issuing commands to everyone from executives to tellers, and she was implementing expensive programs while rejecting potentially profitable product lines. Essentially, she was changing the bank's DNA wholesale.

So why didn't the bank revolt? "Once you get results, no one questions you," says Chalitaporn. "You have to get results, but they have to come fast." Chalitaporn got the board's implicit approval because she promised results immediately. Having the bank's senior directors behind her gave Chalitaporn the heft she needed to get the results.

And those results came fast, exceeding even Chalitaporn's high ambitions. The bank's customer engagement target was the 75 ^th percentile by 2006 and the 90 ^th by 2009. Instead, it shot past the 50 ^th percentile in 2004, the 75 ^th in 2005, and the 90 ^th in 2006 -- achieving the world-class level for customer engagement in banking in just three years, and three years early. In 2004, only two of SCB's branches were world-class; in 2006, 440 of them were.

Employee engagement increased just as fast. From the baseline measurement in 2004, engagement moved from just above the 10 ^th percentile to past the 40 ^th percentile in 2005 to nearly the 90 ^th percentile at the end of 2006. Not only did SCB beat its own aggressive deadline by three years, it exceeded it: employee engagement is now above the world-class level.

The jump between the 2005 and 2006 engagement scores is dramatic, and Chalitaporn says it reflects a sea change in management. "At first, some managers didn't like the changes and dragged their feet," Chalitaporn says. "But the successful branches created an example the slow ones could follow. They saw others being recognized and rewarded, and they wanted it too."

The most engaged branches had, predictably, the best profits too, but SCB as a whole outpaced its own financial hopes. Revenue grew 25% last year, and the target goes up 20% annually. Total assets for the bank increased 176,540,107,151 THB (5,410,958,071 USD) between 2005 and 2006. The bank is now third in assets and net profit and first in market capitalization in Thailand, and Thais are likelier to have an SCB credit card than any other kind.

Join the revolution

Chalitaporn's revolution was greenlighted because she promised results. But how did she deliver them so fast? "I told the employees the outcomes I wanted, I told them the deadline, and I let them figure out how to get there," she says. "That's all."

But that's hardly all: Near-overnight attainment of world-class performance required significant changes. One of the most effective structural changes was institutionalizing communication, but that too is kept simple. "We have to communicate to more than 9,000 employees. [Keeping it] simple makes it easier to communicate and keep the focus," says Chalitaporn. Area managers meet with her once a month to discuss the month's tasks. The area managers leave with a DVD of the agenda, then have one-day meetings with branch managers. Within a few days, every SCB employee has exactly the same information as everyone else.

From the very start, all employees received intensive training and coaching, and the best banks got the most coaching. The bank also invested heavily in new technology and streamlined processes and products. Individuals, however, were encouraged to meet defined outcomes, not follow prescribed steps, to create genuine emotional rapport with customers. Employees were encouraged to defy convention and copy each other's successful innovations -- a thing they were "too proud" to do before, says Chalitaporn.

Work teams met to discuss their employee and customer engagement results and figure out ways to improve them. The key performance indicators were kept top of mind for all employees. Top performers at every level were rewarded. By the time Chalitaporn was done implementing the changes that create engagement, the bank's DNA was almost entirely different.

Public party policy

Some changes were overt signals of subordination reversal -- part of Chalitaporn's simple psychology to increase the importance of the customer. For instance, like most banks, tellers had bowls of candy at their windows. Chalitaporn told the tellers to actually hand candy to children -- and their mothers. Back when lines were 45 minutes long, SCB maids offered glasses of water to waiting customers. Now, when a customer has to wait for something, the manager brings water.

Physical changes reinforced the prominence of the customer too. Branch managers were moved to the front of the store; mall locations were opened seven days a week; and in two-story branches, tellers were moved to the upper floor, encouraging customers to walk past the loan officers and their lucrative product lines to get to a teller desk. Meanwhile, more branches and ATMs were added -- SCB now has more of both than any other bank in Thailand.

Recognition and rewards were not part of the banking culture before the crisis, but SCB has made them a cornerstone of employee engagement. "You would be surprised at the value of small rewards," says Chalitaporn. "Small things add up and measure to more than you think they would." Small improvements merit small, SCB-logoed keepsakes, which are highly visible, as employees are permitted to put nothing on their desks except awards. Larger improvements are rewarded with coveted SCB jackets, and the best branches -- those with the highest financial and customer engagement scores -- are publicly lauded at the executive level.

That's nothing compared to the end-of-year celebration. The best performing teams in any product line are sent to Bangkok -- and that's everyone on the team, from the newest janitor to the branch manager. They are feted, fed, photographed, and thanked, profusely, in person and by the bank president, Chalitaporn, and the Chairman of the SCB board. And of course, they all go home with jackets.

Their party isn't always held at the main office, though. The 2004 party was held at a branch location -- one of SCB's worst branches. That branch's manager had refused categorically to participate in the revolution, but by 2005, having hosted a celebration in which his team couldn't join, that manager and his branch had reversed course and were among SCB's best.

Future plans

Most of SCB's branches have achieved either world-class customer engagement or world-class employee engagement, and many claim both. Chalitaporn's plan is to move all branches up to the highest echelons of engagement, which Gallup calls HumanSigma.

However, SCB's efforts to become the retail bank of choice in Thailand are about to get a lot harder. Other banks have noticed SCB's successes and are working toward customer engagement in their own retail banking divisions. Chalitaporn feels that SCB's performance won't be easily replicated, as SCB's changes are hard to copy, take time to establish, and largely involve the soft side of human interactions -- things that can't be implemented via executive memo.

Then, a few months ago, SCB implemented a change that the competition can never duplicate -- one that ensures that SCB's successful changes will become entrenched corporate values: The bank transferred Kannikar Chalitaporn from the retail banking group. She is now the president of Siam Commercial Bank.